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Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says
- Animats 1y ago[flagged]
- SilverElfin 1y agoThe driver literally stopped paying attention to find his phone that he dropped. Is that really a fanboy thing or just total irresponsibility on the driver’s part?
- Dylan16807 1y agoIt's true but it's not enough to excuse tesla.
- bookmtn 1y agoIf Tesla is partially responsible for this fatal accident, who or what else was ruled as contributing to the crash?
- wedn3sday 1y agoWell, I dont think anyone else contributed a system called "autopilot."
- bdcravens 1y agoAnd yet Tesla was only found 33% accountable, so the presence of "autopilot" was only 1/3 of the cause.
- Hamuko 1y agoI'd guess the driver since he was using his phone, then dropped it and was scrambling to pick it up when the accident happened.
- MBCook 1y agoThe article is clear. The driver bore the rest of the responsibility.
- guywithahat 1y ago> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way. His Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle. On one hand I don't think you can apply a price to a human life, but on the other 329 million feels too high, especially since Tesla is only partially to blame, it wasn't FSD, and the driver wasn't using the system correctly. Had the system been being used correctly and Tesla was assigned more of the blame, would this be a 1 billion dollar case? This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for not looking at the road
- IdSayThatllDoIt 1y agoI imagine the jury heard "autopilot" and then assigned blame to the company that called it that. "[Plaintiffs] claimed Tesla’s Autopilot technology was flawed and deceptively marketed."
- ajross 1y agoAs gets pointed out ad nauseum, the very first "cruise control" product in cars was in fact called "Auto-Pilot". Also real "autopilot" systems in aircraft (where the term of art comes from!) aren't remotely supervision-free. This is a fake argument (post hoc rationalization): It invents a meaning to a phrase that seems reasonable but that has never been rigorously applied ever, and demands that one speaker, and only that one speaker, adhere to the ad hoc standard.
- EA-3167 1y agoAs is also pointed out ad nauseam, the claims made about autopilot (Tesla) go far beyond the name, partly because they sold a lot of cars on lies about imminent "FSD" and partly because as always Elon Musk can't keep his mouth shut. The issue isn't just the name, it's that the name was part of a full-court-press to mislead customers and probably regulators.
- bsimpson 1y agoWellbeing doesn't have a price tag. There's no amount of money someone could pay you to make up for your daughter dying early or your son becoming disabled. However, $329M sounds like an imaginary amount of money in a liability claim. If this guy crashed into a parked car without Tesla being involved, the family would be unfathomably lucky to even get 1% of that amount.
- wedn3sday 1y agoPerhaps the driver would have acted differently if Tesla hadnt sold him a product called "autopilot."
- cosmicgadget 1y agoBut if it was called 'lane assist' or 'adaptive cruise' he might not have bought the car in the first place.
- delecti 1y agoI agree. If Tesla was not allowed to give their product a misleading name, it probably would get fewer sales. That's the rationale behind false advertising laws.
- AlecSchueler 1y agoIndeed. So they called it autopilot and then this accident happened and that's the reality we're actually living in now.
- terminalshort 1y agoTypically you need better evidence than "perhaps" to walk out of court with millions.
- metabagel 1y agoI'm not an attorney, but I think typically juries operate on the "reasonable person" standard.
- SilverElfin 1y ago> While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way. His Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle. Hard for me to see this as anything but the driver’s fault. If you drop your phone, pull over and pick it up or just leave it on the floor. Everyone knows, and the car tells you, to pay attention and remain ready to take over.
- tr81 1y agoWhy would you pull over when you paid top dollars for Autopilot?
- m463 1y agoThe model s has terrible phone docks. Don't get me started on cupholders, I'll bet people have drink mishaps all the time that affect driving. I'm actually kind of serious about this - keeping people's stuff secure and organized is important in a moving car. I'm surprised the touchscreen controls and retiring of stalks aren't coming under more safetly scrutiny. With the new cars without a PRND stalk, how can you quickly reverse the car if you nose out too far and someone is coming from the side? will the car reverse or go forward into danger?
- dzhiurgis 1y agoWhat Tesla touchscreen controls are crucial for driving? FWIW climate is quick little swipe, arguably easier than turning dial.
- nickthegreek 1y agoi’d like to hear that argument.
- m463 1y agolol, I just mentioned direction of travel? defrost? "a quick little swipe" seems like you're trying to minimize something that is actually dangerous. Controls like that should be in one location for muscle memory, stateless and able to be invoked without looking at them. https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/steve-wozniak-says-tesla-is-worst-at-improving-driver-tech/ https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/steve-wozniak-says-tesla-is-w...
- thr0waway001 1y ago[flagged]
- mcrk 1y agoI bet most of the prosecution time was spent "explaining" the meaning of autopilot to the jury. Easy money.
- dmix 1y agoAirplanes have autopilots too but pilots are still sitting there on the controls and have to be paying attention. A brand or technical name doesn't remove responsibility.
- Ekaros 1y agoOnly 0.03% of market cap... Seems pretty cheap actually.
- jayess 1y agoGood lord, $129 million in compensatory damages is absurd. One thing you notice when visiting Florida is that every other billboard says "In a wreck? Get a check! Call Lawyer Ambulance Chaser Jones!!"
- metabagel 1y agoHow much is your life worth?
- SoftTalker 1y agoWhat is a reasonable forecast of your personal balance sheet at the time of your natural death? Of course human life itself doesn't have a dollar value, but that also means that money cannot replace a lost life.
- metabagel 1y ago> money cannot replace a lost life So, money is basically worthless compared to life. That's why there are huge judgements when someone is found at fault for the death of another. I think Tesla's apparent carelessness is a factor in this judgement as well.
- knodi123 1y agoto me? an infinite amount! So trying to measure it in dollar terms is already a pointless exercise. If you want to see the hole in this argument, try looking at it from the other side- How can you arrive at the conclusion that a life is worth only $329M? Why so low? Why not a billion, or a trillion? If you have to come up with an objective and dispassionate standard, then I doubt you'd find one where the number it generates is $329 million.
- metabagel 1y ago> So trying to measure it in dollar terms is already a pointless exercise. That strikes me as an argument for a judgement of zero dollars, which is the exact opposite of the reality that life is worth infinitely more than money.
- devwastaken 1y agoCorps operate in jurisdictions where this is limited to hundreds of thousands regardless of what the jury says. tesla will never pay this.
- TheAlchemist 1y agoWhatever one believes about the state of the FSD / Autopilot today (it still doesn't work well enough to be safe and probably won't for the next 5 years), I just don't see how one can argue that almost 10 years ago, when this thing would go into a fatal accident every 10 miles while Tesla was arguing it's safer than a human and will go from LA to NY autonomously within the year, was not a total bullshit a deceptive marketing. "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons" - that was 2016... Funnily enough, in 2025 they are rolling exactly the same idea, as a Robotaxi, in California. Amazing.
- comte7092 1y agoA lot of discussion in this thread about the technical meaning of “autopilot” and its capabilities vs FSD. This is really missing the point. Tesla could have called it “unicorn mode” and the result would still be the same. The true issue at hand is that Elon Musk has been banding about telling people that their cars are going to drive themselves completely for over a decade now and overstating teslas capabilities in this area. Based on the sum totality of the messaging, many lay consumers believe teslas have been able to safely drive themselves unsupervised for a long time. From a culpability standpoint, you can’t put all this hype out and then claim it doesn’t matter because technically the fine print says otherwise.
- andsoitis 1y ago> it doesn’t matter because technically the fine print says otherwise. Every time you engage the system it tells you to pay attention. It also has sensors to detect when you don’t and forces you. If you have more than N violations in a trip, the system is unavailable for the remainder of your trip. I don’t know how much clearer it could be. I would argue that the system is actually so good (but imperfect) that people overestimate how good it is, and let their guard down. If a system were more error prone, people would not trust it so much.
- danny_codes 1y agoWhich is kind of the entire problem. It’s Tesla bringing this grey-zone product to market that the Jury/Judge found to be problematic (and thus ruled against Tesla). Tesla has always been blasé about safety.
- TheAlchemist 1y agoLook at what Elon and even Tesla official account are publishing daily on Twitter. The tweet suggestions like your car can drive you even when you have a health emergency and need to drive to ER or that you can make an espresso while your car is driving itself. Can you point to any other automaker that even come close to this level of false advertising ?
- Zanfa 1y ago
- wagwang 1y agoI dont understand this at all. Mercedes recently announced that theyd be liable for accidentals caused by their level 4 system meaning that by default, all other self driving features are driver liable?
- dmix 1y agoI haven't looked at it but that may be regulatory or insurance liability vs civil suits which in America like to invent fantastical numbers.
- metabagel 1y agoMercedes Benz system in California and Nevada is level 3 autonomous. https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/level-3-autonomy-what-car-buyers-need-know/ https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/level-3-autonomy-what-car-buy... https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/mercedes-level-4-autonomy-is-a-reality https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/mercedes-level-... > Mercedes Chief Technology Officer Markus Schäfer recently told Automotive News that Level 4 autonomy is "doable" by 2030.
- MBCook 1y agoLevel 3 and level 2 are VERY different. That’s apples and oranges. And Mercedes saying something certainly doesn’t change the law. Mercedes built a sophisticated system designed to be able to handle what it might run into within the very limited domain it was designed for. Then they got it certified and approved by the government. Among other things, it only works at low speed. Not 60 MPH. And I think only on highways, not where there are intersections. Tesla‘s system is not child’s play, sure. But they unleashed it everywhere. Without any certification. And relatively few limits, which I think they later had to tighten. Mercedes was minimizing risk. Tesla was not.
- al_borland 1y agoIf I were running a car company, I may decide to stop development on assistive features and remove any that exist from future models. The way people are using them, and the courts are punishing the companies for adding these safety features, is it worth it to them? Not having them would also bring down the base price on vehicles, which seems to be the primary complaint from people right now.
- BonoboIO 1y agoTesla hid evidence and was probably punished by the jury and I hardly feel sorry for Tesla. Maybe next time they will not do that, but I doubt it. Transparency was never a thing baked into the Tesla Musk DNA. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-to-pay-more-than-200-million-in/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-t...
- LorenPechtel 1y agoIt's not assistive features in general that are the problem. It's that level 3 self-drive (which is what Tesla purports to have) should not be permitted to exist. Things which simply help the driver, fine. Lane assist, adaptive cruise control and other such things that remove some of the workload but still leave the driver with the full responsibility of control. That's level 2. Level 3 can generally run the car but is not capable of dealing with everything it might encounter. That's where you get danger--this guy thought he could pick up his dropped phone, his car didn't even manage to stay in it's lane. And the jury quite correctly said that's totally unacceptable. The next step above level 2 should be skipping to level 4--a car that is capable of making a safe choice in all circumstances. That's Waymo, not Tesla. A Waymo will refuse to leave the area with the sufficiently detailed mapping it needs. A Waymo might encounter something on the road that it can't figure out--if that happens it will stop and wait for human help. Waymos can ask their control center for guidance (the remote operators do not actually drive, they tell the car what to do about what it doesn't understand) and can turn control over to a local first responder.
- terminalshort 1y agoYou probably should have read the article because this lawsuit is specifically about the product that you just said is "fine."
- BonoboIO 1y agoTesla tried to hide evidence … the jury probably did not like to be lied to by Tesla. F** around and find out > The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident. > Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-to-pay-more-than-200-million-in/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-t...
- jayess 1y ago"Schreiber acknowledged that the driver, George McGee, was negligent when he blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a T-intersection at 62 miles an hour before slamming into a Chevrolet Tahoe that the couple had parked to get a look at the stars."
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoInteresting reading https://www.tesladeaths.com/ https://www.tesladeaths.com/, which is linked in the article at the end.
- tantalor 1y agoImportant: headline was just updated, > CORRECTION: Tesla must pay portion of $329 million in damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says This was added, > The jury determined Tesla should be held 33% responsible for the fatal crash. That means the automaker would be responsible for about $42.5 million in compensatory damages.
- v5v3 1y agoThe articles has been updated (correction) to say Tesla is liable for a portion of the damages. Not all of it. 33% liable https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/tesla-must-pay-329-million-in-damages-in-fatal-autopilot-case.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/tesla-must-pay-329-million-i...
- hshdhdhj4444 1y ago33% for the compensatory damages and 100% of the punitive damages according to the article. So total of about $242 mm.
- ra7 1y ago> “Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans,” Brett Schreiber, counsel for the plaintiffs, said in an e-mailed statement on Friday. Tesla had every opportunity to do the safe thing and limit Autopilot to only highways, but they want the hype of a product that "works anywhere" and don't want to be seen as offering a "limited" product like their competitors. Then they are surprised their users misuse it and blame it all on the driver. Tesla wants to have their cake and eat it too. You know what else prevents misuse? Implementing safeguards for your safety critical product. It took multiple NHTSA probes for Tesla to implement obvious driver monitoring improvements to Autopilot/FSD. There's a reason Tesla is always in hot water: they simply lack the safety culture to do the right thing proactively.
- treetalker 1y agoThe case number appears to be 1:21-cv-21940-BB (S.D. Fla.). I practice in that court regularly. Beth Bloom has a reputation as a good trial judge, so I'm somewhat skeptical of Tesla's claims that the trial was rife with errors. That said, both the Southern District and the Eleventh Circuit are known to frequently and readily lop off sizable chunks of punitive damages awards. The real battle is just beginning: post-trial motions (including for remittitur) will be due in about a month. Then an appeal will likely follow.
- debug-desperado 1y ago"Vehicle will not break when accelerator pedal is applied" is displayed on the screen in AutoPilot mode. The system warns you this every time you have foot on the pedal in AutoPilot mode. I wonder if it did that back in 2019 as well or if accidents like this spurred that as a UI change. Also, how the heck is Mr. McGee supposed to come up with the other 67% of this judgment?
- tzs 1y ago> Also, how the heck is Mr. McGee supposed to come up with the other 67% of this judgment? He probably can't. Assuming the amount stands on appeal, and assuming that he doesn't have an insurance policy with policy limits high enough to cover it, he'll pay as much as he can out of personal assets and probably have his wages garnished. He might also be able to declare bankruptcy to get out of some or all of it. An interesting question is what the plaintiffs can do if they just cannot get anywhere near the amount owed from him. A handful of states have "joint and several liability" for most torts. If this had been in one of those states the way damages work when there are multiple defendants is: • Each defendant is fully responsible for all damages • The plaintiff can not collect more than the total damage award In such a state the plaintiffs could simply ask Tesla for the entire $329 million and Tesla would have to pay. Tesla would then have a claim for $220 million against McGee. Of course McGee probably can't come up with that, so McGee still ends up in bankruptcy, but instead of plaintiffs being shortchanged by $220 million it would be Tesla getting shortchanged. The idea behind joint and several liability is that in situations like there where someone has to be screwed it shouldn't be the innocent plaintiff. Many other states have "modified joint and several liability". In those states rather than each defendant being fully responsible, only defendants whose share of the fault exceeds some threshold (often 50%) are fully responsible. For example suppose there are three plaintiffs whose fault shares are 60%, 30%, and 10%. In a pure joint and several liability state plaintiff could collect from whichever are most able to come up with the money. If that's the 10% one they could demand 100% from them and leave it to that defendant to try to get reimbursed from the others. In a modified joint and several liability state with a 50% threshold the most the plaintiff can ask from the 30% and 10% defendants is 30% and 10% respectively. They could ask the 60% defendant for 100% instead. If the 60% defendant is the deep pockets defendant that works out fine for the plaintiff, but if it is the 10% one and the other two are poor then the plaintiff is the one that gets screwed. Finally there are some states that have gotten rid of joint and several liability, including Florida in 2006. In those states plaintiff can only collect from each defendant bases on their share of fault. Tesla pays their 33%, McGee pays whatever tiny amount he can, and the plaintiff is screwed.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoHN commenter: "On one hand I don't think you can apply a price to a human life, but on the other 329 million feels too high, especially since Tesla is only partially to blame, it wasn't FSD, and the driver wasn't using the system correctly." What this sentence is describing are compensatory damages, e.g., compensation for loss of life That number was 129 not 329, and Tesla was only found liable for 33% of it CNBC: "Tesla's payout is based on $129 million in compensatory damages, and $200 million in punitive damages against the company." CNBC: "The jury determined Tesla should be held 33% responsible for the fatal crash. That means the automaker would be responsible for about $42.5 million in compensatory damages." 42.5 is not even close to the 329 number that the HN commenter's claims "feels too high" HN commenter: "This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for not looking at the road" This sentence is describing something more akin to punitive damages, e.g., a fine That number was 200 not 329 It seems the HN commenter makes no distinction between compensatory and punitive damages
- Dylan16807 1y ago1. Why are you "replying" to someone but not using the reply feature? 2. The number that matters here is total compensatory damages, not Tesla's share.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoHN commenter: "On one hand I don't think you can apply a price to a human life, ... " There was only one fatality The "price" was $59M not $329M "433465224","533","2025-08-01","","","2025-08-01.001","PAPERLESS Minute Entry for proceedings held before Judge Beth Bloom: Jury Trial completed on 8/1/2025. Deliberations continue. Jury verdict reached. Jury verdict published and polled. Verdict in favor of Plaintiffs.Total in compensatory damages as to Neima Benavides a Personal Rep. of the Estate of Naibel Benavides Leon: $59,000,000.Total in compensatory damages as to Dillon Angulo: $70,000,000.Total in Punitive Damages as to Neima Benavides and Dillon Angulo: $200,000,000. Total time in court: 5 hour(s) : 30 minutes. Attorney Appearance(s): Adam T. Boumel, Douglas Fredric Eaton, Brett Schreiber, Todd Poses, Thomas P. Branigan, Joel H. Smith, Wendy Frank Lumish, Hilarie Bass, Court Reporter: Yvette Hernandez, 305-523-5698 / Yvette_Hernandez@flsd.uscourts.gov. (ego) (Entered: 08/01/2025)","447817730","PACER Document","","","","533","","","","","","","","","","",""
- mike-cardwell 1y ago> Tesla Model S in Autopilot mode allegedly came to a T-intersection and, failing to see that the roadway was ending, kept his foot on the accelerator Autopilot requires you to have your foot on the accelerator? That seems weird to me.
- joshuanapoli 1y agoNormally, Autopilot does not require your foot on the accelerator. Pressing the accelerator overrides it to make to car move ahead where the autopilot decided to stop. At the time, autopilot would always stop at an intersection, and the driver was supposed to move ahead when it is clear.
- ivape 1y agoCar travel is such a weird thing. The other day I was walking on the driver side of a wide street where cars were passing me by very fast. Most of us are usually an arms length away from passing cars when we do that, roughly an arms length away from being hit at 20+ mph, yet humans do this careful beam walking without flinching. It’s the American version of Indians riding the roof of a train. If you goto a third world country, they are even more acclimated to insanely dangerous traffic conditions (no traffic laws being followed, cars flying out from every angle). The whole thing is insanity yet everyone is just going along with it. A life built around car commutes is the outcome of a poorly thought out society. It had such stupid repercussions like racial segregation and the absurdity that everyone gets their own house along with the vertical airspace on top of it (exceedingly selfish). Along with that, it’s dangerous as fuck. Someone needs to suggest dropping the speed limit across the board in America. Unfortunately the MAGA people will straight boycott roads if we do that (unfortunately?). Most people I talk to in Texas will concede the highways are full of maniacs.
- earthnail 1y agoAnd yet it works surprisingly well. When I lived in London, people waiting for the tube were leas than an arm’s length away when it rushed in. Blew my mind. Eventually I got used to it and did the same.
- lblume 1y agoThe difference is that the tube driver (assuming there even is one) can't just decide to take a slight turn from the planned route, while the car driver really might.
- wouldbecouldbe 1y agoYet of all the traffic accidents, the one you describe never happens. So it’s not much difference
- ehnto 1y ago
- nabla9 1y ago"Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled-access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93dqpkwx4xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93dqpkwx4xo This is a clear case of misleading marketing. Spreading deceptive information and then hiding contradictory details in the fine print simply won't fly. Intent is central to legal interpretation. There's been a clear intent to mislead about Tesla Autopilot's capabilities for years, and it's finally starting to backfire. It doesn't matter if Tesla is, on average, better if individual cases are lost due to constant misleading marketing.
- numitus 1y agoAI system manufacturers want to sell their products by advertising their superhuman reliability, but they don't want to take responsibility for any mistakes. I should mention that I don't have any Tesla cars in my environment, but a friend of mine claimed in 2017 that the car was capable of fully autonomous and safe driving without human intervention. It's interesting how advertising can distort the essence of technology in people's eyes.
- jjaksic 1y agoMy wife and I have 2 teslas, a HW3 and a HW4. Even late last year FSD 12.5 was nowhere near close to being able to drive safely. Any non-straightforward situation (like merging during rush hour) would throw it off, so critical interventions were required at least daily. Starting with FSD 13 on HW4, which came out last December, it's improved dramatically, and since then in my case it hasn't needed a single critical intervention. I think 12.6 on HW3 is also quite good. The caveat is that we live in the Bay Area, which has an abundance of Tesla training data. Elsewhere I've heard the experience isn't as good. And of course, even in the Bay Area the reliability needs to get a few orders of magnitude higher to be suitable for fully unsupervised self-driving.
- deezmofonutz 1y agoJust another excuse not to pay attention while your EV kills another pedestrian. The only thing worse than Tesla cars is Tesla Drivers. Y’all reap what you sow & I hope you burn.
- lupusreal 1y agoI agree with the outcome, both Tesla and the driver share responsibility for this death. I hope the driver's responsibility isn't limited to civil liability; he was using his phone and should be charged with reckless homicide. He should be sent to prison.
- aziaziazi 1y agoFor those not aware of the circonstances (as me), here’s Tesla defence: > this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road There’s lots to blame in auto makers « security marketing » and phone addiction but it seems obvious that driving a 1ton+ vehicle while not constantly looking at the road can lead to bad outcomes. I’m all in for (mass surveillance) onboard eye tracking. Make it optional with 50% bonus on your car insurance and driving state tax. I see many, many drivers every day that are looking at their phone in very inappropriate moments like intersections and line changes.
- Lionga 1y agomaybe do not call it Autopilot if it is well not auto piloting dangerous situations?
- drewbeck 1y agoIf someone wants the circumstances they should read the article, not Tesla’s press release. Here’s what the jury said: … while McGee was two-thirds responsible for the crash, Tesla also bore a third of the responsibility for selling a vehicle "with a defect that was a legal cause of damage"
- ghusto 1y agoThat doesn't give the circumstances, but the judgement. The original commentor gave the circumstances.
- drewbeck 1y agoAs I wrote, the article is where to go to find the circumstances. Neither the original nor I gave the circumstances; my comment gave a counterpoint to Tesla’s assertion about fault.
- bryant 1y agoDo cars normally allow people to prevent emergency braking with the throttle depressed? I haven't actually tried this for obvious reasons, but if their defense is that the safety mechanisms were disengaged with the throttle being fully depressed... (Clarified my comment to "prevent" from "override" since overrides broadly exist - per jeroenhd's comment - but it seems in this case the argument was that the feature never engaged)
- bryant 1y agoThis is by far the correct outcome. Given how long Tesla has been giving users the impression that the software would be superhuman (since 2013 with "Autopilot", and unrelatedly since 2016 with "full self driving"), they're overdue for the consequences, even if in this case they were only found partially liable. The driver took the fair share of the blame for actually making the decision, but the driver's defense that a feature called "autopilot" would supposedly intervene is exactly the kind of marketing gimmick that needs to be penalized. It shouldn't have taken injury and death to get to this point.
- charcircuit 1y agoThis article is about autopilot which is separate from FSD and is essentially equivalent to cruise control in this context.
- pirates 1y agoSo why is it called autopilot if it’s just cruise control? And what about “automatic piloting” doesn’t include the part where the thing drives itself?
- daft_pink 1y agoI think the government has to step in and push us to the last steps in self driving vehicles to be honest. They need to build a workable liability framework structure and mandate road construction to aid self driving vehicles.